Global progress towards banning all corporal punishment of children

- Image by HA! Designs – Artbyheather via Flickr
http://www.endcorporalpunishment.org/pages/progress/global.html
From End Corporal Punishment official web site. In the following text the hypertext links, italicized, are deactivated. Please visit the web site.
Legal reforms to prohibit all corporal punishment of children – in the family home as well as in schools and other institutions and penal systems – are spreading fast.
In many states the law provides defences for parents, other carers and teachers who use corporal punishment to discipline children: provisions which allow “reasonable chastisement” or “lawful correction”. In addition there may be education laws providing for corporal punishment in schools and laws allowing corporal punishment in penal institutions and as a sentence of the courts.
Law reform to end corporal punishment involves removing any provisions authorising corporal punishment and removing any special defences that may exist, so that the criminal law on assault applies equally to any assault of a child, whether or not it is described as discipline. It is a fundamental principle of human rights – upheld in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 7 and in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, article 26 – that all are entitled to equal protection of the law without discrimination.
In some states the law is silent on corporal punishment of children, but nevertheless it is socially and legally accepted and therefore explicit prohibition is required.
Click (active link at the web site) for the latest summary information on progress towards universal prohibition, and selected facts and figures on states pursuing reform and states so far resisting.
Click (active link at the web site) for information of legislation in states which have achieved full prohibition.
Worldwide, corporal punishment in schools has been prohibited in at least 108 states. But at least 78 states have not prohibited corporal punishment as a disciplinary measure in penal institutions for children in conflict with the law, and 43 have not prohibited it as a judicial sentence of the courts for young people convicted of an offence.
Our online global table shows data for all states and dependent territories on the extent of prohibition in three categories: Home; School; Penal system. Listed alphabetically, select from below
: TABLE A-D | TABLE E-H | TABLE I-L | TABLE M-P | TABLE Q-T | TABLE U-Z (active links at the web site)
Also available from the table are individual reports for each state, with details of laws relating to corporal punishment in the home, schools, penal system and alternative care settings, as well as summaries of prevalence research and extracts from recommendations made by human rights treaty bodies. Click here for individual state reports.
Our global and regional tables, available as PDF files (updated August 2009), summarise the extent of prohibition in the home, schools, as a sentence for crime, as a disciplinary measure in penal institutions, and in alternative care settings. Download from here:
[Please visit the web site for latest data]
This analysis has been compiled from information from governmental and non-governmental sources, including reports on implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Every effort is made to maintain its accuracy. Please send us updating information and details of sources for missing information: info@endcorporalpunishment.org.
Related articles by Zemanta
- Sask. children’s advocate adds support to anti-spanking bill (cbc.ca)
- Spanking Hurts Kids’ IQ (abcnews.go.com)
- Corporal Punishment in U.S. Schools (time.com)
- UN agency adopted a new general comment in 2006 on corporal punishment (endhereditaryreligion.com)
Abuses Against Children Persist Despite Rights Convention

- Image by talkradionews via Flickr
http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-10-08-voa53.cfm
VOANews.com
By Lisa Schlein
Geneva
08 October 2009Child rights advocates have kicked off more than a month of global activities leading up to the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Convention, which was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly on November 20, 1989, is the most widely ratified international human rights treaty. Every country in the world, except the United States and Somalia, has ratified it.
Before the Convention on the Rights of the Child came into force in 1989, most of the world thought children should be seen and not heard. Now, 20 years later, some of their voices are being heard, but their rights continue to be violated.
“I believe every child has the right to feel safe, protected from armed conflict, abuse, child labor, trafficking, exploitation. It is really very simple. No child should have to suffer at the hands of others. Not one,” says UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, Hollywood actress, Mia Farrow, who has been fighting for the rights of children for years.
Senator Barbara Boxer and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are moving to accomplish US Senate ratification of the UN CRC. Political analysts say there are votes in the Senate to accomplish ratification, but it may be a tough battle given the unmitigated opposition by fringe partisans who seemingly speak for the Republican party these days. The preposterous lies and distortions they are spreading about the convention are beyond the pale.
Ratification is merely the first step. The difficult challenge will come when state and federal laws will have to be adapted to the requirements of the convention. One obstacle is the prohibition of executing minors which is legal in Texas. Corporal punishment is still legal in 20 states even though there is consensus by child development experts that this reprehensible practice is counter productive. Over 60 nations have made it a crime to strike a child. We must govern ourselves by reason not dogma.
The UN CRC is not just about child soldiers in Africa or elsewhere, or the trafficking of children for illicit purposes. Approximately 9,000,000 American children suffered abuse or neglect in a recent year where data is available.
The Republican religious fringe must not be permitted to seize control of our national debate like they did with health care reform. Shout them down and shut them up, they have no legitimate standing.
For example:
“Folks, this is scary stuff! Big Brother (Governments) want to take over our rights as parents and have children tell us what to do! The devil loves to twist around the natural order that Almighty God has made, we are in dark times!”
– Deacon John
Quoted from the web site: http://deaconforlife.blogspot.com/2009/06/childs-rights-forces-mobilize.html
Related articles by Zemanta
- Children’s Bill of Religious Rights (endhereditaryreligion.com)
- Children have the right to information (endhereditaryreligion.com)
- Parents’ Rights Amendment Reaches 120 Co-Sponsors (deaconforlife.blogspot.com)
- BILL S-207 and the UN Secretary-General’s Study on Violence Against Children (endhereditaryreligion.com)
How Idiot America got that way

- Image by permanently scatterbrained via Flickr
… increasingly frenzied claims have become so detached from reality that they often seem like black comedy. The right-wing magazine US Investors’ Daily claimed that if Stephen Hawking had been British, he would have been allowed to die at birth by its “socialist” healthcare system. Hawking responded with a polite cough that he is British, and “I wouldn’t be here without the NHS”.
This tendency to simply deny inconvenient facts and invent a fantasy world isn’t new; it’s only becoming more heightened. It ran through the Bush years like a dash of bourbon in water. When it became clear that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, the US right simply claimed they had been shipped to Syria. When the scientific evidence for man-made global warming became unanswerable, they claimed – as one Republican congressman put it – that it was “the greatest hoax in human history”, and that all the world’s climatologists were “liars”. The American media then presents itself as an umpire between “the rival sides”, as if they both had evidence behind them. …
How do they train themselves to be so impervious to reality? It begins, I suspect, with religion. They are taught from a young age that it is good to have “faith” – which is, by definition, a belief without any evidence to back it up. You don’t have “faith” that Australia exists, or that fire burns: you have evidence. You only need “faith” to believe the untrue or unprovable. Indeed, they are taught that faith is the highest aspiration and most noble cause. Is it any surprise this then percolates into their political views? Faith-based thinking spreads and contaminates the rational.
If children are taught to not only believe things on faith, but to also reject claims that are supported by evidence and reason when those claims contradict faith, then it shouldn’t be surprising that we get beliefs like those listed above. This sort of attitude is a great benefit to authority figures since they are, of course, the ultimate arbiters of which beliefs should be taken on faith and which shouldn’t.
What would happen if American schools instituted not just classes on critical thinking and skepticism, but actually inserted lessons on critical thinking throughout the curriculum? What would happen if students in public schools were consistently taught the importance of believing things based on evidence and reasoned arguments, not faith or slavish adherence to tradition or authorities? Who would be able to object without looking completely foolish? — Austin Cline, About.com
Religion Makes Conservative Republicans Impervious to Facts
Related articles by Zemanta
- The Rise of Idiot America (endhereditaryreligion.com)
- A Q&A with Charles P. Pierce, author of Idiot America (endhereditaryreligion.com)
- The Anti-Evolution Movement in Texas Highlights Idiot America (usnews.com)
- FDL Book Salon: Idiot America with Charles Pierce (firedoglake.com)
- Birthers are citizens of Idiot America (guardian.co.uk)
- Liars for Jesus (endhereditaryreligion.com)
Science vs. Religion: Ideology and Methodology
I’ve had several private correspondences over the last couple of days dealing with what I’ve started calling the Church of Dawkins. A significant number of theists and atheists seem to believe that there’s some sort of cult forming around everything that comes out of the mouth of the “King of Atheists,” or some nonsense like that. This also ties into the hubbub over the New Atheists and The Four Horsemen and all the other monikers earned by various atheist writers over the last few years.
To begin with, let me say a few things about what is happening in atheism. I’m tempted to put atheism in scare quotes because atheism is not a philosophy or a worldview, but I will let that stand for the moment. Just please realize that when I talk about “atheism” in this sense, I’m talking about a vaguely defined social movement, not the ordinary epistemological position.
Atheism is a movement of a sort. We have conferences and book signings and student associations. There are “factions.” Some atheists don’t believe in the in-your-face style of Dawkins and Harris. Writers like Michael Shermer favor a much more passive and accepting approach to spreading freethought. Ayn Rand was an atheist, and promoted objectivism, which is fervently espoused by a small number of atheists, but discarded as so much claptrap by most rationalists and positivists.
There are “leaders” in atheism. Margaret Downey has been at the forefront of many social and free-thinking issues for years, and is the founder of the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia. She was largely responsible for taking on the Boy Scouts for discriminating against atheists and gays. Richard Dawkins is a prolific author and a compelling speaker, and he has an extensive speaking circuit as well as a very popular website. Sam Harris frequently editorializes in the country’s most widely read newspapers.
It’s relatively easy for me to understand why a lot of people see what’s going on in atheism and think it’s cult-like. Had I been a theist when a lot of these folks became big news, I’d probably have thought the same thing. The thing is, it’s not a cult. Certainly every popular author has his or her fanboys. That cannot be avoided. But the thing that makes this movement special, and I believe unique in Western History, is that it is a seemingly paradoxical movement. Hundreds of thousands of people are working together to encourage every individual to think for himself and not follow the group! How can this be possible? There are two main reasons I can think of: The Principles of Science, and The Convergence of Truth.
The Principles of Science
If you haven’t read my article on the scientific method, now would be a good time, as I will only summarize briefly here. If you understand science, you know that its greatest strength is its independence from authorship. That is to say, if I give you a list of instructions for performing a scientific experiment and you follow the instructions precisely, you will get the same results as anyone else on the planet who followed the same steps. There need not be any attribution or author’s name on the study for you to know the facts demonstrated by the experiment are true.
As humans, we admire scientists who make breakthrough discoveries. We all know the name Albert Einstein, and we all hold him in high reverence, as we do Isaac Newton, Marie Curie, and Jonas Salk. It is important to remember, though, that the discoveries made by these men and women were truths waiting to be discovered. Einstein did not create general relativity. He described it. Salk was the first to observe the truth that a dead polio virus would successfully immunize children against polio. Curie observed that uranium radiation made the surrounding air conductive.
The important point here is that had any one of these scientists not been born, the scientific truths associated with their names would have been discovered by someone else. Perhaps Einstein was ahead of his time, but it is hard to imagine that no human would have put the same pieces of the puzzle together and reached the same conclusion — ever. That’s the beauty of science. The pieces of any puzzle are available for anyone to see. If a thing is true, it is true for Einstein and Hambydammit and Joe Plumber. Neither of us needs the other to see the truth. We just need the scientific method.
The “Four Horsemen” of atheism, as well as most of the lesser known authors, and most bloggers like me, are staunch advocates of the scientific method. In many ways, we are not so much concerned with converting someone to atheism as we are convincing them of the truth that science is the only reliable way to discover truth. Indeed, there are atheists in the world who believe wacky things. As many theists are quick to point out, Stalin was an atheist. So was Mao Tse-tung. These people believed in a political ideology that doesn’t work. They caused immense suffering because they believed an ideology instead of empirically verifiable facts.
As a matter of fact, Sam Harris himself has been quite critical of using the word “atheist” to describe this movement. Paul Geisert and Mynga Futell co-founded the term “Brights” in an attempt to unite everyone who believes in naturalism and science. I only refer to myself as an atheist because the word is accurate in describing my lack of belief in a deity. Given the choice, I call myself a naturalist or a materialist, for both of those words give a far more detailed description of what I do believe, rather than simply mentioning one thing I don’t believe in.
Science, then, is the central support of the growing atheist movement. Since science is results-based instead of personality based, we should expect the movers and shakers to come and go. We should recognize that so long as any particular figure in the movement is espousing independent, empirically verifiable science, we will not be heading down the road towards a cult of personality. Similarly, we should demand that no matter how well-established a particular figure is, he should back up every positive claim he makes. Tenure does not reduce the burden of proof.
The best example I can think of is the laughable tactic used in the movie Expelled. In one scene, Ben Stein is interviewing Dawkins about the origins of life, and Dawkins explains that even if life were seeded on earth by aliens, it would only push the question of origins back one step. We would still have to account for the beginning of the alien life, and the only plausible explanation is gradual increasing complexity as described by evolution. Theists have jumped on this bandwagon in an attempt to discredit Dawkins. “SEE!” they proclaim. “The Grand Poo-Bah of Atheism Believes in Aliens!!”
Granted, this is stretch, but let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. Let’s suppose that Richard Dawkins believes aliens seeded life on earth. Fine. He needs to get to writing, because he’s got a HUGE burden of proof to overcome before anybody believes him. Oh, sure. There will be a few thirteen year olds who will hang their hats on alien seeding without demanding proof, but every scientist worth his dissertation will demand overwhelming proof.
When Antony Flew succumbed to dementia and espoused belief in a deistic god, the reaction from the brights and atheists and naturalists was mostly sympathy. He has been a prominent figure in the freethinking movement, and it is sad from a human perspective to see that his faculties have dimmed and that he cannot form coherent arguments anymore. He is still highly respected as a member of the freethough community, and his serious work still stands as strongly as it ever did.
The broad point is a simple one. This movement, unlike any other ideological movement, has its roots in something outside of the word of man. Ironic, isn’t it? For centuries, men have told us that the word of God was outside of the word of man, but there was no way to verify that except for trusting the word of men. Now, with the discovery of science, we truly can discover reality without trusting men. The independence of the scientific method is the escape hatch from the cult of personality.
The Convergence of Truth
If you know something about evolutionary biology, you know what convergent evolution is. Simply put, some solutions to problems are better than others, and evolution, being based entirely on the success of design, tends to discover particularly good solutions over and over. The eye is one of the best examples. At least eight independent times, evolution has stumbled upon the solution of light detection. In many environments, creatures that can detect and react to light are significantly better equipped to survive than those who can’t. The eye has developed in different ways. Just as there are multiple ways to build a camera lens, there are different ways to build eyes. At the heart of all eyes, however, is the inescapable truth: Seeing is better than not seeing.
I want to take the same principle and apply it to living as a human. When we look around the entire world, we see many remarkable convergences of truth. As a very mundane example, we observe that virtually all cultures go out of their way to make tools designed for human rear ends to rest upon. The truth is simple: Humans expend less energy while resting than standing, and sitting on one’s rear end is one of the best forms of resting. Of course, there are thousands of designs for sitting devices. I’m sitting in a faux-leather office chair with wheels. There are rocking chairs, swings, settees, pillows, lumbard support cushions, and divans. The angle of inclination, comfort, height, and other variables change significantly between designs, but all of them address the same truth — it is good for people to sit sometimes.
We should not suppose for a minute that one human thought up a chair, and every chair since has been a copy or adaptation. How foolish that would be! When anthropologists discover a new tribe of humans that has never had contact with the outside world, they observe sitting devices of some sort. Shaping the environment to make a comfortable sitting surface is so obvious an action that we hardly think of it as requiring intelligence. Even so, this is a good analogy for more complicated convergences of truth.
I have mentioned before that a naturalist philosophy essentially demands atheism, if followed to its logical conclusion. This, of course, is because of the incoherence of all god-definitions when applied to naturalism. This understanding hasn’t been easily accessible for most of human history. Modern epistemology, ontology, and symbolic logic have given us the tools we need to make the observations of naturalism with justification. Therein lies the key to this growing movement of diverse yet convergent atheists. Any one of these fields demands answers to questions that lead to other related fields. If I begin with logic, I must at some point address the question of how far the rules of logic apply. To answer that question, I must study ontology. To study ontology, I must study epistemology. If I thoroughly grasp these subjects, I will be pulled very strongly towards naturalism. (It’s my belief that naturalism is the only justifiable position, but that’s another blog topic.)
You can probably see where I’m going with this. Atheism is a convergent truth. It may be reached in a variety of ways, but it is the logical conclusion to a great many lines of thinking. Most importantly, it is the position demanded by the scientific method. If there is a god, there is evidence for this god. Science has yet to uncover one scrap of evidence for god, so it must conditionally conclude that god-belief is unjustified. Put simply, anyone who meticulously and precisely follows the scientific method ought to arrive at atheism if he ever addresses the question of god(s). In the same way that any two people on earth, given a description of a basic science experiment, will achieve the same results, the rejection of the god theory is also a predictable result of the application of the scientific method. It is a truth accessible to anyone on the planet, independent of whether it has been discovered elsewhere before.
The Uniqueness of the Atheist Movement
“Atheism” (or “New Atheism, if you must) is a unique movement in human history. Never before have we had access to so much information about the universe and the nature of reality. I don’t see the atheism movement as a political movement, or an ideological movement. Instead, it is in large part a realization by millions and millions of people that science gives them the freedom to shake off the yoke of personality. They need not follow Sagan or Dawkins or Dennett. They can instead avail themself of the independent and objective yardstick of science and logic. The truths they discover may have been previously discovered, of course, and if it turns out that they find like minded people who have also made the same discoveries, so much the better.
This isn’t about atheism. It’s about realizing that we have the justification as humans to throw off religion and superstition and do the best we can at working out the nature of reality ourselves. There will be quacks and fakirs who will come and go. They will gather their own followers, but in the end, their ideas will be discarded when it becomes obvious that they cannot stand up to independent scrutiny. If ever there was a movement that was truly about the individual, this has to be it. It is about belief in the reliability of truth outside of the word of any man, no matter how intelligent or powerful he might be. It is what religion has claimed to offer and failed. Where religion only offers the word of man to testify to the “Truth,” science offers itself as the path to truth, and anyone can discover the truth without indoctrination or threats of punishment.
Ironic, isn’t it?
I realize that I’m setting myself up. Theists will jump on the bandwagon and say, “See! It’s just like a religion! You’re religious!” When they do that, I will quietly explain to them — again — that there is no end to the chain of heresay in religion, and science is its own end. There is an unethical experiment we cannot perform in reality, but can easily imagine as a thought experiment. Suppose we take a hundred children and raise them in complete social isolation. That is, we ensure that they are not taught any religious concept whatsoever, or ever hear the word “god” or “science.” When they are old enough to manipulate their environment creatively, we put them in an isolated environment with various problems to solve. They must find shelter from the heat and rain. They must find food. They must not defacate where they sleep or they will soon have to find new shelter.
Most of the children will solve these problems, assuming there are things to eat and places to hide. Most of them will use tools to accomplish their purposes. Supposing we leave them existing tools, they will probably discover their uses. If, for instance, we leave a lens to focus sunlight, some of the children will learn to start fires. Not all, of course, but many. If we leave an umbrella, most of the children will figure out how to open it, and will use it as a portable shelter.
Now, let us ask ourselves: How many of these children will come up with the Gospel of John? How many will come away from their isolated existence believing firmly that Jesus Christ is the son of god, and they must believe in him or suffer eternal hellfire as punishment for disbelief? The obvious answer is that not one child will come to that conclusion. Not one. Yet all of them, to some degree or another, will convergently discover truths of science. Nobody will discover Allah, or Thor, or Zeus, or Ahura Mazda. To discover these gods, we must learn of them from other men.
After this objection has been dealt with, atheists and theists alike will aver that there is more to life than scientific observation. Human life is about culture and love and emotional entanglement. Science can describe these things empirically, but it cannot tell us what to do with them. To that, I will reply, “Precisely my point!” Science can and does describe culture, love, and emotional entanglement. We discover truths about being human. We are evolved creatures with instincts and intelligence. We all desire companionship, mating, and social acceptance. We all tend towards conspicuous consumption. All of this information is useful to us in deciding how to act.
Human culture is diverse and in some ways quite unpredictable. Science doesn’t promise utopia. It promises truth. Sometimes the truth is ugly, and that is one of the scariest things about abandoning myth for truth. Tsunamis will strike. Hurricanes will devastate cities. Charlatans will rob people of their life savings. But science at least gives us a clear window into why these things happen, and offers us the chance to potentially change what we want to change, based not on guesses about what Jehovah might want us to do, but on the way the world works, as verifiable to anyone who cares to look.
There will always be questions to answer, and there will always be people and cultures we disagree with. Science will not give us a One World Government, or a universal code of ethics. Instead, it will give us a way to understand the necessary and dynamic diversity we see in different cultures. It will give us the justification to call for the end of demonstrably harmful cultural practices. It will demand evidence before embarking on grandiose social engineering projects. It will demand that we give an empirically verifiable reason before imposing this or that law on a populace. It will demand an end to blind faith.
The Science Movement is about ending that which is demonstrably false and harmful, and about enabling us to find the best ways to pursue what we believe is right. This is no different from the religious movement in one very important sense — it’s still about doing what we believe is right. The crucial difference, however, is that it finally gives us a yardstick to test our beliefs against. It is literally a reality check to guage whether our intentions match our actions. It’s fine and good to intend good or to wish people happiness. It’s quite another to act in a way that actually promotes happiness. Science is the tool for determining the effectiveness of our actions. It is the only reliable tool. THAT is what makes science different from religion.
The Root of All Evil

- Image via Wikipedia
In The Virus of Faith, Dawkins opines that the moral framework of religions is warped, and argues against the religious indoctrination of children. The title of this episode comes from The Selfish Gene, in which Dawkins discussed the concept of memes. The Root of All Evil? is a television documentary, written and presented by Richard Dawkins, in which he argues that the world would be better off without religion. The documentary was first broadcast in January 2006, in the form of two 45-minute episodes (excluding advertisement breaks), on Channel 4 in the UK.«
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8210522903232438954
The words of God do not justify cruelty to women

- Jimmy Carter via last.fm
The Guardian/The Observer – UK July 12, 2009
Discrimination and abuse wrongly backed by doctrine are damaging society, argues the former US president
by Jimmy Carter | Opinion
“Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status …” (Article 2, Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)
I have been a practising Christian all my life and a deacon and Bible teacher for many years. My faith is a source of strength and comfort to me, as religious beliefs are to hundreds of millions of people around the world.
So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention’s leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be “subservient” to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service. This was in conflict with my belief – confirmed in the holy scriptures – that we are all equal in the eyes of God.
This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. It is widespread. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths.
Nor, tragically, does its influence stop at the walls of the church, mosque, synagogue or temple. This discrimination, unjustifiably attributed to a Higher Authority, has provided a reason or excuse for the deprivation of women’s equal rights across the world for centuries. The male interpretations of religious texts and the way they interact with, and reinforce, traditional practices justify some of the most pervasive, persistent, flagrant and damaging examples of human rights abuses.
At their most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities.
The impact of these religious beliefs touches every aspect of our lives. They help explain why in many countries boys are educated before girls; why girls are told when and whom they must marry; and why many face enormous and unacceptable risks in pregnancy and childbirth because their basic health needs are not met.
In some Islamic nations, women are restricted in their movements, punished for permitting the exposure of an arm or ankle, deprived of education, prohibited from driving a car or competing with men for a job. If a woman is raped, she is often most severely punished as the guilty party in the crime.
The same discriminatory thinking lies behind the continuing gender gap in pay and why there are still so few women in office in Britain and the United States. The root of this prejudice lies deep in our histories, but its impact is felt every day. It is not women and girls alone who suffer. It damages all of us. The evidence shows that investing in women and girls delivers major benefits for everyone in society. An educated woman has healthier children. She is more likely to send them to school. She earns more and invests what she earns in her family.
It is simply self-defeating for any community to discriminate against half its population. We need to challenge these self-serving and out-dated attitudes and practices – as we are seeing in Iran where women are at the forefront of the battle for democracy and freedom.
I understand, however, why many political leaders can be reluctant about stepping into this minefield. Religion, and tradition, are powerful and sensitive area to challenge.
But my fellow Elders and I, who come from many faiths and backgrounds, no longer need to worry about winning votes or avoiding controversy – and we are deeply committed to challenging injustice wherever we see it.
The Elders have decided to draw particular attention to the responsibility of religious and traditional leaders in ensuring equality and human rights. We have recently published a statement that declares: “The justification of discrimination against women and girls on grounds of religion or tradition, as if it were prescribed by a Higher Authority, is unacceptable.”
We are calling on all leaders to challenge and change the harmful teachings and practices, no matter how ingrained, which justify discrimination against women. We ask, in particular, that leaders of all religions have the courage to acknowledge and emphasise the positive messages of dignity and equality that all the world’s major faiths share.
Although not having training in religion or theology, I understand that the carefully selected verses found in the holy scriptures to justify the superiority of men owe more to time and place – and the determination of male leaders to hold onto their influence – than eternal truths. Similar Biblical excerpts could be found to support the approval of slavery and the timid acquiescence to oppressive rulers.
At the same time, I am also familiar with vivid descriptions in the same scriptures in which women are revered as pre-eminent leaders. During the years of the early Christian church women served as deacons, priests, bishops, apostles, teachers and prophets. It wasn’t until the fourth century that dominant Christian leaders, all men, twisted and distorted holy scriptures to perpetuate their ascendant positions within the religious hierarchy.
I know, too, that Billy Graham, one of the most widely respected and revered Christians during my lifetime, did not understand why women were prevented from being priests and preachers. He said: “Women preach all over the world. It doesn’t bother me from my study of the scriptures.”
The truth is that male religious leaders have had – and still have – an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter.
Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world. This is in clear violation not just of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Moses and the prophets, Muhammad, and founders of other great religions – all of whom have called for proper and equitable treatment of all the children of God. It is time we had the courage to challenge these views.
Jimmy Carter was US president from 1977-81. The Elders are an independent group of eminent global leaders, brought together by Nelson Mandela, who offer their influence and experience to support peace building, help address major causes of human suffering and promote the shared interests of humanity.
This article was found at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/12/jimmy-carter-womens-rights-equality
Related articles by Zemanta
- God is merciful, but only if you’re a man (guardian.co.uk)
- I’m Sorry, But US Hypocrisy On Human Rights Is Continuing Apace Under Obama. China Is Exhibit A. (chinalawblog.com)
Religion is Not about Tolerance
ABC Middle East correspondent Anne Barker became the target of an angry mob of Orthodox Jews. The protest she was filming was happening because a local council decided to open a municipal carpark on Saturday. As she filmed, several protesters noticed her.
It was like rain, coming at me from all directions – hitting my recorder, my bag, my shoes, even my glasses.
Big gobs of spit landed on me like heavy raindrops. I could even smell it as it fell on my face.
Somewhere behind me – I didn’t see him – a man on a stairway either kicked me in the head or knocked something heavy against me.
I wasn’t even sure why the mob was angry with me. Was it because I was a journalist? Or a woman? Because I wasn’t Jewish in an Orthodox area? Was I not dressed conservatively enough?
No. It was none of that. She was using a camera. Using a camera is a desecration of the Shabbat. For pressing a button on a camera, these idiots decided that she deserved to be spat upon. Not just a little, either. She deserved to be covered in spittle. She deserved to be kicked in the head.
This is obviously not the first time we’ve seen organized stupidity in the name of religion. Various groups are ready to kill and torture for crimes ranging from drawing a cartoon to naming a teddy bear to performing legal abortions to being raped by an uncle. It’s not my purpose to point out that there’s a lot of stupidity in religion. If you are not aware of this fact, you either live in a cave or have permanent blinders attached to your head.
Instead, I want to make the case that “Live and Let Live” is simply not compatible with religion. Sure, there are moderate religious people in most every religion who are content to let others have differing beliefs, but I think we’ve had it wrong all along. These people aren’t the rule. They’re the exception, and the exception doesn’t disprove the rule in this case.
I realize that this isn’t a popular position, and I also realize that it’s kind of hard to prove, in a statistical sense. Here’s the problem. Very few people want to be identified as religious extremists. In fact, many people who are religious extremists don’t believe themselves to be. Compounding this is the well known fact that people tend to see themselves as more rational, fair, and altruistic than they really are. The result, then, is that in surveys, we would expect to see a large number of people self-identifying as religious moderates when in fact, their beliefs and attitudes are quite extreme.
Consider the extremist position of advocating, voting for, and demonstrating publicly for the legislation of a purely religious belief. (I don’t think anyone would argue that this is an extreme practice of religion, would they? It’s not “live and let live.”) We have plenty of that in America, and a great deal of it is coming from the live-and-let-live moderates. Moderates have been active supporters of prayer in schools, the Ten Commandments in court houses, the tampering with the Pledge of Allegiance, the teaching of religion as science in public schools, abolishing a woman’s right to reproductive choice, banning sex toys, changing the constitution to legalize discrimination against gays, restricting the rights of retailers to sell perfectly legal products on days of religious observation, and dare I say it… protecting the interests of Israel primarily because of its place in the history of our major religion.
If only those who self-identify as “fundamentalists” or “theocrats” or other extremists were behind all of these measures, none of them would ever pass. The U.S. would be a truly secular nation with separation of church and state if only 20-25% of the population actively supported things like “faith based initiatives.” But as we’ve seen time and time again, religious legislation has the support of large swaths of the American public.
I don’t want to harp on this for too long since it will distract from my main point. I’m not trying to prove that there are lots of religious extremists in America. That, too, should be patently obvious. What I’m trying to do is demonstrate that religion itself — the belief in things that contradict science, and the validity of feelings over evidence — promotes and encourages this kind of behavior, and more importantly, that religious tolerance is NOT the normal state of affairs in religion. It’s the exception that proves the rule.
In defense of this claim, I offer the following:
- Humans, by nature, form religion in their own image. Humans, by nature, are prone to intolerance, herd mentality, and group-think.
- Many, if not most, religious moderates are more moderate in practice than belief. At least in my experience, most moderates, if pressed, will agree with many of the extremist practices in principle, but will lament extremists as too “over the top.”
- Our statistics on religious moderates are largely from self-identification, and people tend to identify as less extreme and more tolerant than they really are. We should expect the number of “real extremists” to be higher than the statistics indicate.
- The history of successful religious litigation, and the continued erosion of the church-state wall indicates very broad support — much broader than just self-identified extremists.
- We see the same patterns in other major religions, Islam and Judaism in particular. It’s a lot more talk of tolerance than practice.
- The “true feelings” of moderates towards atheists. Time and again, atheists are viewed by the majority of theists as untrustworthy, immoral, or just outright evil.
If moderation and tolerance was the default setting for religion, we should expect that across cultures, extremists would have very little say in government, and that by and large, there would be few public fights over matters of religion. What we see is quite the opposite. In most countries where the population is primarily religious, we see heated and often violent public and legislative fights over how to institutionalize, legalize, and give preferential treatment to religious interests.
Human nature is not always pretty, and religion facilitates and encourages many of the worst parts of it. It gives people permission to believe themselves correct despite outside reality checks. It gives us permission to go to the dark places in human nature and not only give them voice, but put them into practice. It lets us spit on women, cut off their genitals, and stone them to death after raping them. Not only that, it gives us permission to believe that anyone who says anything about it is an infidel.
No. Religion is not about tolerance. When a person is religious and tolerant, it’s not the religion’s doing. It’s the person’s own nature overriding the destructive and divisive beliefs that religion gives them permission to have. When a church adopts a kind, gentle view of Christianity that doesn’t shout about hell and damnation, it’s because the people in the church are good in spite of the nastiness inherent in their religion.
Religion is poison.
Preparing children for death

- Image via Wikipedia
We think kids are mistreated by parents now, and they are, but it is encouraging to look back and see that we have made some progress. Little did I realize, until I started digging into the history and philosophy of childhood, just how bad it was for kids in the past. Feeding children superstition and dogma must end, imagine telling scary tales to children as a form of discipline. Again we note the ever present influence of clergy. Most people are probably not aware of the role of clergy, beyond the obvious admonitions they made to whip children.
My grandmother was born during the waning days of the Victorian period, and she of course directly influenced my mother who was born in 1917. However, my mother never told me frightening tales as punishment. All children seem to love to listen to stories and I was no different. Perhaps it is because even very young children recognize that this is quality time. Just you and a beloved parent and they are focused perhaps for the first time in the day when they sit down on your bedside, open a book and begin to read. If they are good at this, they also supply appropriate sound effects and voice characterizations as good as any actor on the big screen.
I was treated to many fairy tales, but I don’t recall being especially frightened by Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Jack in the Bean Stalk, or Little Red Riding Hood. Perhaps some of our readers can comment on their childhood memories.
Alexander Bain is an interesting historical figure in the pantheon of humanists. We should celebrate his birthday and revive his memory. Perhaps hold an international day of protest against forcing faith on children and pick his birthday for holding the event.
Pass Grade in Passing On by Jacob Middleton examines how the Victorians’ obsession with death extended to terrifying their children in order to prepare them for the grave.
May 2007, Fortean Times
In 1880, the philosopher Alexander Bain complained about the way in which Victorian society disciplined its children. While he saw many methods as ineffectual, he reserved his greatest hostility to what he dubbed “spiritual, ghostly, or supernatural terrors”. 1 Bain was a rationalist, heavily influenced by the utilitarian philosophers of the early 19th century, and his hostility towards what he regarded as superstition is therefore hardly surprising. What disturbed him most, however, was not the nature of this means of disciplining children, but its ubiquity; in a society that wished to regard itself as rational and modern, most children were frightened into quiescence by the threat of supernatural terrors.
The period in which Bain was writing was one in which corporal punishment of children at school and home was habitual and the treatment to which many children was subjected was considered, even then, to be cruel and demeaning. Moreover, supernatural retribution had long been considered an acceptable means of disciplining children. In The History of the Fairchild Family, probably the most successful children’s book in Victorian Britain, death is painfully visited upon those who disobey parental authority. A child might find itself burnt to death for the sin of vanity, while illicitly consuming preserved fruit would “merely” result in a near-fatal fever. 2 Such punishments were regarded as natural consequences of disobedience, a divine retribution.
Cautionary tales, such as those in The History of the Fairchild Family, were made more believable by the ever-present threat of sudden death in an era of limited medical expertise, which was seeing the first discoveries of microbiology. Children were expected to be aware of their mortality from an early age, and there was even a literary genre devoted to teaching children how to die a ‘good death’. These works were invariably true stories, relating how particular children met their end with appropriate Christian fortitude when struck down by disease. 3
However, while such literature was heavily promoted by the clergy, and by middle-class parents keen to give their offspring a religious upbringing, it formed only one strand in a popular culture preparing children for death. Perhaps it is surprising to the modern reader, used to stereotypes of religious Victorians, to find how small a part Christianity played in their education. Although most Britons would have described themselves as Christian, it was found in 1851 that only a quarter of the population attended church. 4 Education about death, then, was provided for in other ways, often through popular literature and folk custom. From the mid-19th century, this was supplemented by Spiritualism, a movement that concerned itself with raising children with the ‘correct’ attitude to death and the afterlife. It is estimated that, by the end of the Victorian period, as many as 10,000 children were attending lyceums, the spiritualist equivalent of Sunday schools. 5 What we can be certain of is that the messages that the 19th-century child received about death and its spiritual implications were many and varied.
http://www.forteantimes.com/features/commentary/443/pass_grade_in_passing_on.html
Older Posts »


![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_b.png?x-id=110cb2d3-374c-43a1-a29b-25caf9ebd1b3)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_b.png?x-id=572de16d-546c-488a-ba55-f64e684d50b4)

![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_b.png?x-id=1538859f-db69-48b2-9e44-fe519168ecb5)

![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_b.png?x-id=887f6902-ee29-4204-9e99-0273e2c4ccc3)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_b.png?x-id=806871d1-8cfa-483e-a2b3-58ff64c65e31)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_b.png?x-id=5da32c6e-9822-4509-95a2-0befa5cacc07)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_b.png?x-id=8004585d-327c-43da-99f0-b0ea64ae50f1)



